Hawaii Agrees to Change Policies for Incarcerated Gay Youths

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/national/13hawaii.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

February 13, 2006

Hawaii Agrees to Change Policies for Incarcerated Gay Youths
By JANIS L. MAGIN

HONOLULU, Feb. 12 — Under a settlement with the federal government, the state has agreed to make sweeping improvements at Hawaii's troubled youth prison in the next three years, but a civil liberties group that sued over the problems says the agreement does not go far enough to protect gay wards from harassment, abuse and discrimination.

The settlement with the Justice Department came last week as a federal district judge, J. Michael Seabright, issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit that was filed in September by the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii. The judge described conditions at the prison, the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, as "chaotic" and called for the state to stop the abuse and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender wards.

The lawsuit, coming after a Justice Department report last summer that described the 71-bed youth facility in Kailua as "existing in a state of chaos," was filed on behalf of an 18-year-old lesbian, an 18-year-old boy perceived by guards and other teenage wards to be gay and a 17-year-old male-to-female transgender girl. It says the teenagers were physically and verbally abused by staff members at the facility as well as by other wards because of their sexual and gender orientation.

"Everyone knew that the climate was pretty pervasive and nobody did anything about it," said Lois Perrin, legal director for the A.C.L.U. of Hawaii. Judge Seabright has scheduled a status conference on the case for Monday. ......

[wiley]

1. What is wrong with people?

Can Americans not incarcerate anyone without torturing them?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

2. It's our obsession with punishment as a form of revenge

and our indifference toward rehabilitation.

It's our desire for revenge that makes us as twisted as those who are incarcerated. Sad. :(

[xchrom]

3. there it is. the truth.